Sanctuary of Women: Blog

Image: Wise Women Also Came © Jan Richardson

Friends, it is the time of year when I get to wish you a Merry Women’s Christmas and share a gift that I’ve created for you in celebration of the day!

You might know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany Day (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is also celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a bit of respite and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.

Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.

It has become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas—or any time you’re in need of a space of respite and regathering. This year’s retreat is titled Curious about Joy.

The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with others. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.

Clicking the link below will take you to a page on this Sanctuary of Women site where you can download the retreat as a PDF file. There is no cost; this is my Women’s Christmas gift to you! If you wish, you can make a donation in support of the retreat; contributions will be shared with the A21 Campaign (a21.org), which is devoted to ending human trafficking and providing sanctuary, healing, and hope for those rescued from slavery.

Download the 2024 Women’s Christmas Retreat

(If you don’t see the 2024 retreat when you click the link, just refresh your browser so that you’re seeing the most recent version of the Women’s Christmas page, and the new retreat should appear.)

This year’s retreat opens with a new blessing I’ve written for you, which you can find below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, I pray that you will be attended by many graces. Merry Women’s Christmas!

All This Time, Joy
A Blessing for Women’s Christmas

In all this dark,
did you think that
joy had forgotten you,
as if you could have
merely slipped its mind
while it absconded
to sit by some other fire?

When all this time,
joy has been
singing your name
to the stars
that have never ceased
to shine.

—Jan Richardson

[The image Wise Women Also Came is © Jan Richardson from Night Visions. To use this image or order an art print, please visit this page at Jan Richardson Images.]

Image: Wise Women Also Came © Jan Richardson

Friends, it is the time of year when I get to wish you a Merry Women’s Christmas and share a gift that I’ve created for you in celebration of the day!

You might know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany Day (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is also celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a bit of respite and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.

Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.

It has become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas—or any time you’re in need of a space of respite and regathering. This year’s retreat is titled In the Light of a New Constellation.

The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with others. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.

Clicking the link below will take you to a page on this Sanctuary of Women site where you can download the retreat as a PDF file. There is no cost; this is my Women’s Christmas gift to you! If you wish, you can make a donation in support of the retreat; contributions will be shared with the A21 Campaign (a21.org), which is devoted to ending human trafficking and providing sanctuary, healing, and hope for those rescued from slavery.

Download the 2023 Women’s Christmas Retreat

(If you don’t see the 2023 retreat when you click the link, just refresh your browser so that you’re seeing the most recent version of the Women’s Christmas page, and the new retreat should appear.)

This year’s retreat opens with a new blessing I’ve written for you, which you can find below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, I pray that you will be attended by many graces. Merry Women’s Christmas!

Those Stars That Turn in Us
A Blessing for Women’s Christmas

I do not know
how to keep it all together
or by what patterns
this world might
finally hold.

What I know is that
our hearts are bigger
than this sky
that wheels above us

and what shines
through all this darkness
shines through us,
setting every shattered thing
into a new constellation

and we can turn
our faces
to that light,
to the grace of
those stars
that turn in us.

—Jan Richardson

[The image Wise Women Also Came is © Jan Richardson from Night Visions. To use this image or order an art print, please visit this page at Jan Richardson Images.]

Image: Wise Women Also Came © Jan Richardson

Friends, it is the time of year when I get to wish you a Merry Women’s Christmas and share a gift that I’ve created for you in celebration of the day!

You might know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany Day (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is also celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a bit of respite and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.

Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.

It has become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas—or any time you’re in need of a space of respite and regathering. This year’s retreat is titled A Path Called Solace.

The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with others. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.

Clicking the link below will take you to a page on this Sanctuary of Women site where you can download the retreat as a PDF file. There is no cost; this is my Women’s Christmas gift to you! If you wish, you can make a donation in support of the retreat; contributions will be shared with the A21 Campaign (a21.org), which is devoted to ending human trafficking and providing sanctuary, healing, and hope for those rescued from slavery.

Download the 2022 Women’s Christmas Retreat

(If you don’t see the 2022 retreat when you click the link, just refresh your browser so that you’re seeing the most recent version of the Women’s Christmas page, and the new retreat should appear.)

This year’s retreat opens with a new blessing I’ve written for you, which you can find below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, I pray that you will be attended by many graces. Merry Women’s Christmas!

What the Night Is For
A Blessing

Oh, my heart,
if we could cease working
on our sorrow
like we were trying
to stitch together
shattered glass.

This breaking
is not for fixing,
as though,
if we could just find
the fitting tool,
everything would tumble
into its place,
joined and whole.

Perhaps it is time
to let the shards lie
where they have
fallen.

Perhaps it is time
to let ourselves
sit and weep
over them.

And then perhaps
we scatter them—
into the soil,
into the sky,
it does not matter
where.

Let them take
their place.
Let them shimmer
like a constellation
in all that darkness—

sky-dark, soil-dark,
at home in that strange
and radiant solace
that knows
what the night
is for—

how it takes
the broken things
and sets them
shining
to light our way
from here.

—Jan Richardson

[The image Wise Women Also Came is © Jan Richardson from Night Visions. To use this image or order an art print, please visit this page at Jan Richardson Images.]

Image: Wise Women Also Came © Jan Richardson

Friends, it is the time of year when I get to wish you a Merry Women’s Christmas and share a gift that I’ve created for you in celebration of the day!

You might know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is also celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a bit of respite and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.

Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.

It has become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas—or any time you’re in need of a space of respite and regathering. This year’s retreat (our tenth!) is titled The Sanctuary Between Us, and it offers an invitation to ponder how we hold space for one another across the distance.

The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with others. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.

Clicking the link below will take you to a page on this Sanctuary of Women site where you can download the retreat as a PDF file. There is no cost; this is my Women’s Christmas gift to you! If you wish, you can make a donation in support of the retreat; contributions will be shared with the A21 Campaign (a21.org), which is devoted to ending human trafficking and providing sanctuary, healing, and hope for those rescued from slavery.

Download the 2021 Women’s Christmas Retreat

(If you don’t see the 2021 retreat when you click the link, just refresh your browser so that you’re seeing the most recent version of the Women’s Christmas page, and the new retreat should appear.)

This year’s retreat opens with a new blessing I’ve written for you, which you can find below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, I pray that you will be attended by many graces. Merry Women’s Christmas!

About the Light
A Blessing for Women’s Christmas

As of yet
I cannot say
which I love best
about the light:

that it gathers itself
even in what goes hidden,
no stranger to
the seed, the stone,
the labyrinth of night,

or that it is wildly
generous in where
it lands, glad the same
to touch the face of
the one in laughter,
the one in tears,
the one in trouble,
in fear, in pain.

But it may yet be
that this is what
woos me most
about the light:

that it knows
what to do with distance,
how it arcs
across the space
between a heart
and a heart,
illuminating that ache
through which
the farthest of stars
might be seen.

—Jan Richardson

[The image Wise Women Also Came is © Jan Richardson from Night Visions. To use this image or order an art print, please visit this page at Jan Richardson Images.]

Image: Wise Women Also Came © Jan Richardson

Friends, it is the time of year when I get to wish you a Merry Women’s Christmas and share a gift that I’ve created for you in celebration of the day!

You might know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is also celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a bit of respite and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.

Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.

It has become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas—or any time you’re in need of a space of respite and regathering. This year’s retreat is titled “What the Light Shines Through.” As I continue to make a new life, I’ve thought a lot about the work of mending, restoration, and healing—the ways by which the brokenness within us and around us becomes transformed. This year’s retreat offers an invitation for you to do some reflecting, wondering, and dreaming about how this happens in your own life, and how we are called to do the work of restoration and healing together.

The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with friends near or far. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.

Clicking the link below will take you to a page on this Sanctuary of Women site where you can download the retreat as a PDF file. There is no cost; this is my Women’s Christmas gift to you! If you wish, you can make a donation in support of the retreat; contributions will be shared with the A21 Campaign (a21.org), which is devoted to ending human trafficking and providing sanctuary, healing, and hope for those rescued from slavery.

Download the 2020 Women’s Christmas Retreat

(If you don’t see the 2020 retreat when you click the link, just refresh your browser so that you’re seeing the most recent version of the Women’s Christmas page, and the new retreat should appear.)

You are welcome to make copies of the retreat to share with friends. I would be delighted for you to offer this gift to others by sharing this blog post; you can use any of the social media icons at the bottom of this post or simply forward the link to others.

This year’s retreat opens with a new blessing I’ve written for you, which you can find below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, I pray that you will be attended by many graces. Merry Women’s Christmas!

Singing to the Night
A Blessing for Women’s Christmas

Who would have thought
the sky could be so pierced,
or that it could pour forth such
light through the breach
whose shape matched
so precisely
the hole in the heart
that had ached
for long ages,
weary from all its emptying?

And what had once been
a wound
opened now
like a door
or a dream,
radiant in its welcome,
singing to the night
that would prove itself
at last
not endless.

Call the piercing a star.
Call it the place the light begins.
Call it the point that tethers us
to this sheltering sky.

Call it the hope
that keeps holding us
to this broken,
blessed earth,
that keeps turning us
toward this world
luminous beneath
its shadows.

Call it the vigil fire
kept in that place
where every last thing
will be mended
and we will see one another
finally whole,
shining like the
noonday sun.

—Jan Richardson

[The image Wise Women Also Came is © Jan Richardson from Night Visions. To use this image or order an art print, please visit this page at Jan Richardson Images.]

Image: Wise Women Also Came © Jan Richardson

Friends, it is almost Women’s Christmas! I want to share a gift I’ve created for you in celebration of the day.

You might know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is also celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a bit of respite and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.

Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.

It has become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas—or any time you’re in need of a space of respite and regathering. This year’s retreat is titled “By Way of the Heart.” As I continue to make a life in the wake of my husband’s death, I have been astonished to learn how much our hearts can hold—how they expand not only to carry the sorrows that come to us but also the love and joy that still find us. Even as it alters us, this expansion makes it possible for us to engage our lives and the world more wholeheartedly. This year’s retreat offers an invitation for you to reflect on your own heart and the mysteries it holds.

The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with friends near or far. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.

Clicking the link below will take you to a page on this Sanctuary of Women site where you can download the retreat as a PDF file. There is no cost; this is my Women’s Christmas gift to you! If you wish, you can make a donation in support of the retreat; contributions will be shared with the A21 Campaign (a21.org), which is devoted to ending human trafficking and providing sanctuary, healing, and hope for those rescued from slavery.

Download the 2019 Women’s Christmas Retreat

(If you don’t see the 2019 retreat when you click the link, just refresh your browser so that you’re seeing the most recent version of the Women’s Christmas page, and the new retreat should appear.)

You are welcome to make copies of the retreat to share with friends. I would be delighted for you to offer this gift to others by sharing this blog post; you can use any of the social media icons at the bottom of this post or simply forward the link to others.

This year’s retreat opens with a new blessing I’ve written for you, which you can find below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, I pray that you will travel in the company of love. Merry Women’s Christmas!

Constellation
A Blessing for Women’s Christmas

Consider that the heart
holds its own constellation.

Consider that it has
a secret chamber
radiant with unspent light.

Consider this when you cannot find
that one star, that dream
that compels you to the road.

When every last thing seems
to have disappeared into dark,
consider that you cannot always know
how you bear this brightness
but that it holds you
and is not wasted
or lost.

See how we share this sky,
how it stretches above us
beyond every border,
how every day
turns each of us
in steady revolution
through morning, night,
morning again.

Or think of it like this:
that every heart is its own voyage,
sending its vessels out,
drawing them back again,
never by the same way they went
but still somehow making for
home, that place
that shimmers now in welcome
with all the gathered light
you had thought
you could not see.

—Jan Richardson

[The image Wise Women Also Came is © Jan Richardson from Night Visions. To use this image or order an art print, please visit this page at Jan Richardson Images.]

Image: Wise Women Also Came © Jan Richardson

Friends, it is the time of year when I get to wish you a Merry Women’s Christmas and share a gift that I’ve created for you in celebration of the day!

You might already know that in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is also celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a bit of respite and celebrate together at the end of the holidays.

Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.

It has become a tradition for me to create a retreat that you can use for Women’s Christmas—or any time you’re in need of a space of respite and regathering. This year’s retreat is titled “The Path We Make by Dreaming.” As I continue to find my way in the wake of my husband’s death, I have been giving a lot of thought to how dreaming happens in my life. I’m talking about dreaming in its broadest sense: the dreams that come by night, the dreams that come by day, the imagining and envisioning we engage in as we work to find and create our path. This year’s retreat offers an invitation for you to reflect on how dreaming happens in your own life, in both the darkness and the day.

The retreat is very flexible, easily adaptable to your own purposes. You can do the retreat anytime you wish, by yourself or with friends near or far. It includes an introduction with some thoughts about how you might use these reflections.

Clicking the link below will take you to a page on this Sanctuary of Women site where you can download the retreat as a PDF file. There is no cost; this is my Women’s Christmas gift to you! If you wish, you can make a donation in support of the retreat; contributions will be shared with the A21 Campaign (a21.org), which is devoted to ending human trafficking and providing sanctuary, healing, and hope for those rescued from slavery.

Download the 2018 Women’s Christmas Retreat

(If you don’t see the 2018 retreat when you click the link, just refresh your browser so that you’re seeing the most recent version of the Women’s Christmas page, and the new retreat should appear.)

You are welcome to make copies of the retreat to share with friends. I would be delighted for you to offer this gift to others by sharing this blog post; you can use any of the social media icons at the bottom of this post or simply forward the link to others.

This year’s retreat opens with a new blessing I’ve written for you, which you can find below. As we celebrate the day and enter into the year ahead, I pray that you will find wondrous dreams to live into. Merry Women’s Christmas!

The Map Our Dreaming Makes
A Blessing for Women’s Christmas

I cannot tell you
how far I have come
to give this blessing
to you.

No map
for the distance crossed,
no measure
for the terrain behind,
no calendar
for marking
the passage of time
while I traveled a road
I knew not.

For now, let us say
I had to come by
a different star
than the one
I first followed,
had to navigate by
another dream
than the one
I loved the most.

But I tell you
that even here,
the hope

that each star belongs
to a light
more ancient still,

and each dream
part of the way
that lies beneath
this way,

and each day
drawing us closer
to the day
when every path
will converge

and we will see the map
our dreaming made,
luminous in every line
that finally led us
home.

—Jan Richardson

[The image Wise Women Also Came is © Jan Richardson from Night Visions. To use this image or order an art print, please visit this page at Jan Richardson Images.]